The Caltrans sign at the end of the back road out of the Best Buy electronics store parking lot in Emeryville gives an odd command: Left Turn Only. The odd part is that the sign sits in front of a two-way street, Hollis Street, where a right turn appears permissible. -more-
What’s to be gained from converting the Ashby Avenue and Gilman Street corridors in West Berkeley from manufacturing and light industrial zones to commercial? -more-
The eight remaining tenants of an illegal West Berkeley live-work warehouse have agreed to vacate their homes by the end of the month in return for approximately $10,000 and six months free rent dating back to April. -more-
Former Congressmember Ron Dellums has extended for a week his deadline for announcing whether he will run for the office of mayor of Oakland in 2006. -more-
Berkeley physician and inventor Kenneth Matsumura wants to terminate the Terminator, and if preliminary results are any indicator, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may face a recall vote in next June’s general election. -more-
A former UC Berkeley employee has sued the university charging, that she was laid off for criticizing her department head for awarding fellowships based on political favoritism rather than merit. -more-
A Bay Area Air Quality Management District monitor, responding to four complaints of bad air wafting from Pacific Steel Castings, was robbed at gunpoint outside the plant’s West Berkeley headquarters at 1 a.m. Friday. -more-
An article in the Sept. 30 issue on the 35th anniversary of The Monthly mistakenly reported that Fred Cody wrote exposés on milk, meat and sugar diets. Tom Klaber was the author of those articles on the meat, dairy, sugar and cancer industries in The Monthly throughout the ‘70s. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit www.jfdefreitas.com To search for previous cartoons by date of publication, click on the Daily Planet Archive.
-more-There’s a strike at Berkeley Honda. The owners of the business have raised big bucks for Cal. Is UC siding with the dealership to the extent of bending or breaking campus rules about free speech and free alcohol? Based on what I observed on campus last Saturday afternoon, the answer appears to be yes. -more-
Should we erect a statue of Jimi Hendrix in Berkeley? Whaddaya think? -more-
There are words for certain people who have lost loved ones; a widow, a widower, an orphan. But what do you call a parent who has lost a child? I pondered this question with Kimberly Willis-Starbuck, mother of Meleia, lost to us all in a tragic shooting in Berkeley on July 17. -more-
Several weeks ago a woman came to our front door and introduced herself as Grandmaw. -more-
“They went, they sat, they came back,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth Monday. -more-
If John Gertz actually wants to understand what he calls “anti-Israelism,” I suggest he take a break from name-calling and use the time to learn a bit about what’s happening on the ground in occupied Palestine. -more-
I’m only a part-time reader of the Daily Planet, and the San Francisco Chronicle doesn’t often cover the Berkeley ferry issue, so I may be a little out of date. I wonder if ferry planners have even considered what might be a huge boon to hundreds, if not thousands, of West Berkeley residents, and that is putting the ferry terminal closer to the shoreline rather than at the tip of the marina? -more-
I am impressed that Ms. Mickleson (Letters Sept. 16) chose the words “ignorant hedonist” to describe how I painted her, and while I will not quibble with her interpretation, I will advise that she be mindful of her own brush strokes. Having carefully followed this developing story I think Ms. Mickleson would be well served to check her own bucket of paint. -more-
A rice bowl, a pair of chopsticks and a brightly colored cloth, when put together, cause a samurai to materialize, leaping, fencing, then, quickly changing into a junklike boat on cloth waves, the same simple objects manifesting the transoceanic voyage of Japanese to America. -more-
Microcina leei may very well be the most obscure creature I’ve ever written about. It stumped Google Image; the accompanying photograph is of a very distant relative. It’s only a millimeter long and spends its entire life hiding under rocks. -more-
In the wake of a 215-190 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives this week defeating a bill by Rep. Barbara Lee to rename the main Berkeley Post Office after former Berkeley Councilmember Maudelle Shirek, a spokesperson for Lee said that she has not given up on the idea. -more-
While the world-wide proletariat struggle may have seen better days, there is a museum in Oakland making sure socialism’s bygone era will never be forgotten. -more-
While not conceding that Christopher Hollis fired the bullet that killed his friend and former Berkeley High School classmate Meleia Willis-Starbuck, his attorney John Burris said the 21-year-old Berkeley native had confirmed earlier press accounts of the shooting. -more-
Despite a signed agreement barring schools and day care centers on a toxics-laden South Richmond site, minority students of the Making Waves academic preparation program meet regularly on the site. -more-
Ignoring the wishes of several city commissions, the City Council gave itself the task Tuesday of forming an advisory committee to oversee the development of new downtown zoning laws. -more-
An article in the Sept. 27 issue mistakenly reported that Abdulalaziz Saleh, Behjat Yahyavi and Johnny Shokouh were owners of Dwight Way Liquor. According to Shokouh, he and Yahjavi own the property at 2440 Sacramento St. and Saleh owns the store. -more-
The Draft Ron Dellums For Oakland Mayor Campaign played its last act this week, with members hoping that next week there will soon be a political campaign to work on. -more-
Berkeley planning commissioners looked at three thorny issues Wednesday night and decided they didn’t have enough information to make a decision. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
Following Norway’s Sept. 12 elections that saw a green-red coalition turn out a pro-business, anti-immigrant center-right government, the German daily, Die Tageszeitung, mused that “perhaps people in Germany could learn something from this.” It appears they did, and what they learned is likely to be repeated in Italy and France next spring. -more-
“Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble…” -more-
There are countless examples of media word-storms but the deluge from Hurricane Katrina in sound and print copiously illustrated is over the top, the coverage pushing aside a newly named chief justice of the Supreme Court and also the violence in Iraq. Every conceivable point of view floods the perspective leftward and rightward far beyond previous limits. Katrina and her aftermath aroused sympathy and outrage, finger pointing and frustration; it created a swirl of passions that changed an ordinary word-storm into a rampaging tornado. Everyone with access to viewer/reader no matter how poorly or well qualified, close or distant, illiterate or eloquent contributed; the word-twister touched down, cleared existing terrain and revealed along with its real debris a bounty of dumb observations and idiotic pronouncements. -more-
The anti-war movement continues to put up great resistance to the reactionary cannon balls constantly being lobbed into our lives. However, a larger, more visionary action plan has been lacking. As a result of no apparent handle to organize around a comprehensive, inspiring political agenda, the anti-war movement has steadily spiraled into a strategic dead end. -more-
Karen and Tom Klaber started what is now known as The East Bay Monthly in their home 35 years ago. -more-
Forget moveable feasts. How about a moveable gallery? -more-
As Berkeley prepares to remake its downtown once again at the behest of the University of California, we had the pleasure of spending Friday night in downtown Santa Cruz, which remade its downtown at the behest of the Loma Prieta fault. After the 1989 earthquake, the city hastily demolished many of the buildings on Pacific Avenue, and has been rebuilding the streetscape there ever since, with the aid of a redevelopment authority to coerce reluctant property owners into going with the flow. Berkeley won’t have the Draconian power that the earthquake gave Santa Cruz (G_d forbid we should have such an earthquake here!) But it’s useful to take a look at what works and what doesn’t, in a situation where almost everything’s possible. -more-
Congressman Steve King is the yokel who has organized the successful Republican effort to prevent the Berkeley Post Office from being named after Berkeley’s revered Maudelle Shirek. We won’t waste much space here delineating exactly how annoyed the people of Berkeley are at his presumption, because they’ll certainly make their opinions known in our letter columns. Instead, let’s take a good look at who King is, and what we might do from here to make sure the people in his district are suitably embarrassed by him. First, he’s been quoted speaking admiringly of old Joe McCarthy (dean of the Congressional witchhunters in the ‘50s, for those young readers who were shortchanged in their U.S. history class.) His website does a candid job of describing his other politics: -more-
